Student Teaching - Week #8

by Kristin Trease - Kelvyn Park High School 

Life in the City

I am becoming a habitual coffee drinker. Understand something: until 6 months ago, I rarely drank anything with coffee in it, let alone just coffee. This is the kind of thing 9^th graders drive you to. On Tuesday, after an awful Monday, I had some coffee before school, finishing it during first and second period. I was hyped up not only on coffee, but also because I really liked the activity I was leading. Yasmine, a girl with a tough exterior and an even tougher boxing stance, asked me what was wrong with me. Caffeine. She told me I shouldn’t do that again. Thursday night I bought a French Press coffee maker. Sorry, Yasmine, get used to crazy, caffeinated Ms. Trease.

The Book Thief at the Steppenwolf Theatre

Saturday, I experienced my first stand-by status for a theatre ticket. Steppenwolf Theatre, perhaps the top theatre in the city, is in the middle of running The Book Thief, adapting it from the young adult novel of the same title by Markus Zusak. I read the book last year in my Adolescent Literature class and absolutely fell in love with it.  Narrated by Death, the story recounts Liesel Miminger’s experience in World War II, living as a German girl, but figuring out her place in the war isn’t among the Nazi’s, but rather in the basement with the fugitive Jewish man her foster parents are harboring. It is a beautiful and heartbreaking book, and I highly recommend it. Here, have a taste of Death:

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race – that rarely do I simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. . .I am haunted by humans.”

Death as Narrator

I’m so glad I took a shot and showed up at the theatre to see if I could get a seat to the sold out show. It was Steppenwolf’s equivalent of a children’s show, so they had been performing in front of audiences of students for the last few weeks. This was the first public performance. Well worth twenty bucks, but that’s usually how I feel about theatre shows. A good way to spend a Saturday afternoon: I fed my inner introvert and artist. Not that I always want to go to shows on my own, but yesterday it was alright. 

Life in the Classroom

This week I start teaching all five periods of Content Area Literacy full time. I’ve been teaching quite a bit of all the classes, but this week I am officially full time. It’s so ridiculous that we’re in our eighth week. For the next four weeks, I’ll probably be busier than I’ve ever been. Luckily, my cooperating teacher is really great and supportive. She won’t let me drown. 

I really love it when things outside the classroom line up so beautifully with things inside the classroom. Yesterday at the show, there was a big wall painted with chalkboard paint that asked “Who is your upstander?” (For those readers who can’t figure it out from context clues, an upstander is one who doesn’t just stand by and watch something happening, but takes a stand for what’s right and does something about it.) A couple weeks ago, the freshmen learned all about bystanders, upstanders, victims, and perpetrators. We had some really good conversations about the roles we typically take, and why some are better than others. It was a conversation they had the day after the chaos that was the first substitute day, when the classes went crazy. I got some really great apology letters that day. It was cool having upstanders and bystanders come back into my focus yesterday. I really hope these kinds of connections happen for the students, too. 

I’m starting to feel like a real teacher. I can tell when the students are annoyed with me, but I don’t care. It’s obvious when they think I’m acting a fool, but I don’t care. I am starting to get student stories, slowly leaking out on their own. I’m starting to recognize handwriting. I feel so proud when I hear a voice usually quiet, and I feel a twinge of annoyance when I continue to hear the same voice over and over again. Now if only I could figure out how to keep classroom management under control, I’d be a real life teacher. I’ll get there.